1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electronic game systems and more particularly to game software recorded in copy protected form.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Portable game systems that generate player controlled objects in simulated worlds for display on an LCD screen are well known and are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,369,827. It is also well known to store game program instructions and graphics data in digital memory cartridges that plug into such portable game systems. Even if such digital memory cartridges include a trademark and copyright notice as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,184,830, software pirates disregard such notices. Game software in executable form is easily copied and is often sold by software pirates in counterfeit cartridges and disks and is distributed freely on the Internet. It is also known to protect programs by securely storing them in a digital memory in the same processor chip that executes the program instructions as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,339,815. It is also known to include microprocessors in portable game cartridges as described in US patent applications 2002/0028710 and 2003/0050116. Crypto microprocessors that execute encrypted programs using bus encryption are also disclosed in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,278,837.
Software for game systems has been distributed on laser-readable optical disks for use in console game systems. Game software is typically pressed into optical disks during disk fabrication. Then encrypted data is typically burned into a ring-shaped area of the disk known as the Burst Cutting Area (BCA) also known as PCA, which consists of a unique circular series of variable-spaced bars that are burned, melted, or heated with a medium power laser beam into each disk after the disk is pressed by the manufacturer. This heating process permanently alters reflectivity of bar-shaped areas in a reflective layer in the disk. The word “burned” is used herein to encompass various methods for placing a substantially unique bar code onto each disk, even though the reflective layer(s) are usually not burned through but merely darkened. Reflectivity of the burned bars is distinguished from the surrounding unburned area which may overlap the pressed pit area of the disk. More than a hundred patents have been issued for optical disks, BCA, and related technology, such U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,081,785 and 6,175,629.
Various physical features of the pressed pits and burned barcodes may be recorded in optical disks for authentication by disk controllers, as described in US patent application 2003/0048718. These physical features may include the quantity, relative locations, shape, size, and/or reflectance of pressed pits and/or laser-burned bar codes.
Game data on optical disks has been authenticated by disk drive controller chips, but such authenticating processors in consoles are physically separated from the processors in portable game systems that execute game programs from cartridges. This creates a problem of securely downloading software from the Internet or from optical disks in consoles to portable game system cartridges.
There are various ways that video games can be downloaded into a game system from an Internet server or over a telephone line. For simple video games, all of the software, including programs and data, can be downloaded from a server and stored into a nonvolatile data memory cartridge in a user's game system.
Piracy of portable game software (programs and data) is similar to piracy of music software. When digitized music is read from a data storage medium or decrypted so that it can be converted to analog sounds that can be heard, the digitized music is easy for pirates to copy. But there is one major difference between music and game software. Game programs do not have to be heard or seen by their users and hence game programs do not have to be executed in easily accessible portable game system processors.
In the present invention, encrypted game programs can be distributed in encrypted form on optical disks and on Internet servers, downloaded in encrypted form, and decrypted, stored, and executed in integrated crypto processors in game memory cartridges to generate game data, without the decrypted game programs being accessible outside of the crypto processors.